3 Ways to Break School’s Monopoly on Education
Look at any school district’s Mission Statement and you’ll find the term ‘Lifelong Learner’. Education, the thinking goes (correctly), is a universal necessity to all human beings in all walks and stages of life. A school’s job, then, is not merely to impart knowledge or skill but create citizens who never stop learning. It’s not enough to learn to read and write and count; everyone needs to know HOW to learn to read and write and count, so they can go on to learn a zillion other things.
But nothing quite exposes the hypocrisy or contradiction of our education system than the ‘Lifelong Learner’ proclamation made by schools.
Because as true as the sentiment might be, schools hold a monopoly on ‘learning’ that they rarely or willingly relinquish. To schools, the only legitimate lifelong learning is that which occurs under their watch, through their methods, and by their measurement. They define what counts as worthy of being learned, dictate inflexibly how all learning must occur, and stamp every act of learning with their own narrow standards. The education system may declare it wants to create ‘learners’ more than ‘the learned’, but it rarely acknowledges that it has sole authority over what counts and how it’s done.
‘Learning’ is a pretty plastic term. One learns to read, but also to throw a ball. One learns to…
